


A Taste of Honey

by guti



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M, POV Alternating, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 12:48:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6154218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guti/pseuds/guti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You’ve always been an early riser, a morning person, not a night owl.  Sometimes he’s asked you to come out for a pint after the show.  You always decline.  He never questions it.</p><p>As you’re headed to your flat, the idea of having a drink before bed seems somehow appealing and you wonder if you should ring him and say you’ve changed your mind.  You’re mates now, bonafide friends.  It wouldn’t be odd.  You think better of it as you recall there’s a pub near to yours that you’ve occasionally thought to check out.  </p><p>You decide not to call him.  You’ll have a drink on your own instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Taste of Honey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anemoi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anemoi/gifts), [neyvenger (jjjat3am)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjjat3am/gifts).



It’s been a long day. Analysis, scripting, banter, make-up, revisions, chiding, more make-up, the taping. It’s exhausting in a way that’s still unfamiliar to you. It isn't uncomfortable anymore, but you’re pretty certain you’ll never quite get used to being paid to talk. No one ever cared for your opinions before, even though you’d give them freely. No one ever wanted to hear you talk before. No one ever could stand it. But it’s a fun gig and it pays well, and moreover, you’re decent at it, and in the face of everything, you’ve made nice with everyone and you’re mostly happy.

Still, you enjoy the chance to steal away to yourself when it’s all done. There’s a quiet place you know where the bartender smiles and doesn’t bug you for a photo. Sometimes the patrons do, and that’s fair enough. But mostly they all sit around and drink and sometimes invite you to play darts. You like it, so sometimes you do.

*

It’s been a long day. But then, your days are always long. You’ve always been an early riser, a morning person, not a night owl. Sometimes he’s asked you to come out for a pint after the show. You always decline. He never questions it.

Tonight he’s asked again. Again you say no. But as you’re headed to your flat, the idea of having a drink before bed seems somehow appealing and you wonder if you should ring him and say you’ve changed your mind. You’re mates now, bonafide friends. It wouldn’t be odd. You think better of it as you recall there’s a pub near to yours that you’ve occasionally thought to check out. 

You decide not to call him. You’ll have a drink on your own instead.

*

You’re on your second beer and feeling quite pleasant when he walks into the pub. It’s unexpected, a total surprise. You never expect to see him there, not in a place like this anyway, shuffling his way toward the bar where he orders up a drink for himself, eyes fixed at the tender so he hasn't had a chance to notice you. You’ve noticed him though, noticed him the second he stepped in, noticed the way he carries himself— proud, though in a dingy place like this, he’s no right to be. Everyone who comes here comes for the same thing anyway. He’s no better than anyone else, least of all not you.

Still, he’s surprised you already, and that’s a start.

You set your empty glass down and before you can really think of a reason to stop, you’re on the stool beside him with something witty on your tongue.

He turns to you, dark eyes wide with shock. He wasn't expecting you either, had probably hoped for some anonymity by getting off the beaten path. You almost laugh at him, thinking he might blend into a crowd. Such a fool. He’ll never get away from it all. He is who he is, there’s no escape. But you don’t laugh, you just smile back. 

And then you pay for his drink.

*

You draw spectators. It’s inevitable, you always do. It’s not everyday they get to see the pair of you sipping pints together in a public house, relaxed and laughing, like there’s no divide between you, never has been, never could be. After all, you both bleed red, don’t you? It’s almost indistinguishable, nearly the same. One couldn’t tell, at a distance, that you’d ever been anything besides best mates.

There’s an empty booth and you stand up, pull on his sleeve and head toward it. He doesn’t react at first, only watches you. His gaze is slow, eyes big and hazy, but he’s smiling and compliant, and you spend the next hour taking the piss out of each other as the waitress brings another round, then one more.

*

He’s easy to talk to. That’s probably the thing that’s surprised you the most of all. You can’t honestly remember thinking much of him before you started on the show. He was always just the enemy, someone you’d rather forget than waste ten brain cells on. But he’s smart, in that analytical sort of way that you admire. And he’s witty. And he can be charming. And if he wanted to, he could talk circles around you. 

He’s talking circles around you now and it’d be dazzling if he were sober enough to make any sense. He’s not making sense, though, so you can’t help but cackle when he talks himself into a corner and can’t find his way out.

*

He’s drunker than you are, he’s had a head start. But that hardly matters. You catch up quick. You’ve always been a lightweight.

*

His leg brushes yours under the table, and in the same instant he makes a jibe that’s close to your heart and cutting. You swallow. You might've imagined it. But he’s got this look on his face, infuriating as he ever was, and you suddenly and quite urgently want to kiss that mouth of his.

You don’t.

*

He’s looking at you like he might kill you. It takes you back.

Suddenly you’re a decade younger and so is he. Suddenly all you can hear is the roar of the crowd, not yours, his. His fans, screaming, hissing, jeering. They want vengeance, they want blood. They want the blood to run red and the invaders run out, they want it, they want it now. It’s all muddled though, like a fog, somewhere between memory, fantasy, and dream. They always roared like lions, but the crowd was never as loud as they are in your head right now.

And he never looked so tempting. Not like he does now, jaw set in that petulant way of his, eyes narrowed in concentration, like he’s puzzling over something. In your state it takes a moment to realize he's puzzling over you.

You smile then and ask if he wants to come back to yours.

*

To your own surprise, you hear yourself say yes.

You zip up your jacket all the way and step out into the night together.

*

It isn't a far walk back to your place. He seems surprised by that, and you recall then that he’s never been over before. He tells you he often goes out to this pub after tapings, because it’s quiet and calm and people know him there. You laugh and tell him you’d never been in before, it was just a lark to pop by. You didn’t want to drink alone.

You fumble for your keys and he asks why you haven’t gone back home tonight. Why did you stay in London, he wants to know. You shrug and say something about the long commute. You want to leave it there. He nods. He’s got an apartment, too.

*

All he has is wine, and that’s fine by you. He apologizes for the mess, but the place is well kept, tidy. Organized but lived in. It’s nice. You crack a joke, he smiles, and you sit beside each other on the sofa with your glasses. Cabernet. A red, of course.

He tells you the year. 2008. A good year, he says. A very good year. You roll your eyes at him as you take a drink.

*

His lips are stained dark purple, and you lick yours and wonder if he tastes as sweet.

*

He’s a little annoying, but you’re mostly used to it now. You think back, as you relax into the cushions of his couch, and remember what it used to be like, how much you utterly despised him, hated him, wished he’d do a backflip off the planet and into the sun, when he’d run that mouth of his and conduct himself like he was some sort of extra special god among men. Like the whole world revolved around him and his stupid club and his stupid accent, like his superiority complex could be backed up by fact.

You remember when you used to hate him. He used to talk so fast. He used to command your attention. He still does, even now, and you wonder vaguely if he can tell how soft you’ve gone, how weak. How…

*

He’s looking at you, all glassy-eyed and wanting, and you have to have a laugh. He’s always been infuriating in that way, making things difficult when it all should be so simple. Adding extra words to sentences, saying things in ten words that he could say in two. 

Like now. Now he’s curled up on your couch like it may as well be his, feet pulled up beneath him, and he’s staring at you, corners of his mouth pulled up into a smile as he sinks back and says, “I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this, but you’re a handsome sort of fellow, if you’re taken from the right angle, I mean.”

It’s a joke, so you laugh. But he’s not laughing. He’s dead serious.

That’s when you decide to kiss him.

*

His lips taste much sweeter than wine. He tastes so sweet you could get drunk off of him.

So you do.

*

It isn’t until he pulls away that you start to think again, start to analyze what you’ve done, what you want to do. Even then, it’s hard to say no. He kissed you back and he’s looking at you now, malice gone, nothing of it left except maybe the sort of reverence a beast has for its prey. Desire, gratitude, perhaps. Longing. You’re almost sure your expression mirrors his. If it doesn’t, it really ought to because you’re almost desperate to kiss him again.

*

You cup his cheek, run your thumb across the stubble there as you let your eyes close. You tell him it’s been a long day. You should probably go home.

You want him to ask you to stay. You’re shocked when he actually does.

*

No one’s ever shared this bed with you before. He’s the first. As far as you’re concerned, he’ll likely be the only one. 

He remarks on your linens. He’s surprised they aren’t red. You ask if his are red. He says no, eyes lighting up mischievously.

*

He feels so good, so pliant, but so strong. You almost forget sometimes that there’s a man under those suits, beneath the caked TV make-up, behind years of punditry and calling the shots. You should know better, you’ve known him for so long, known him in his prime, when he was an animal, an utter threat. He hasn’t gone soft, not really, because you’re sure he could still take you down if the mood ever struck. He could always take you down a peg or two.

But now he’s beneath you, legs wrapped around you as you move with him, against him, inside him. His hands are on your back, fingers digging into your flesh and it almost hurts. It’s a good hurt, good like how he’s probably hurting right now.

He kisses you again and it’s frantic this time. He lets go of you, hands between you, one on himself and the other on your stomach.

He goes tight around you when he comes.

*

There’s this feeling of regret that comes over you after. It’s this tense sort of fear that threatens to swallow you up and you can sense it in him too. He hovers near you, hesitating, not touching as he casts around for his clothes. He says again that he should go and he’s awkward as he moves, drunk still, and now afraid to face the hangover that’s sure to come.

You tell him no, he can stay. You’ll cook him breakfast, you know how to.

He looks back at you, over his shoulder, holding you still with those bright green eyes. You were lost in them at the pub, on the sofa, everyday you’ve spent next to him, sitting across from him, staring him down over the field. Doesn’t he know that? How could he not know that?

He says okay, and he’ll take his eggs scrambled, and he’ll need coffee and not tea for the headache that’s sure to come in the morning. You sit up in the bed and turn back the covers. He tosses his shirt back onto the floor, and without a word he’s in your arms once more.

*

This is how it’s meant to be, isn’t it? You’re human, you both bleed red. From a distance, it doesn’t look so different. Everything sort of blurs, it all seems the same. What’s a few miles up or down the road in the grand scheme of things? From a distance, the look of hate can easily bend itself into passion or more, and the haze of drink can be lust in disguise.

You study his profile as he’s sleeping. He really is a handsome sort of fellow, if he’s taken from the right angle. With the wintery moonlight seeping in above the curtains, he’s even more so. You shake your head and set those thoughts aside just as he begins to stir, so you close your eyes and let him pull you in and hold you tight. 

It’s been a long day. You deserve a good night, and he tastes much sweeter than wine.

**Author's Note:**

> \- dedicated to my two scouse lambs. for shaz on her birthday and for julija on her almost birthday (you'll get an actual present soon!)  
> \- here's the musical [accompaniment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upGpNvp5ets). there's also [this version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC38-qqiVgg), just for kicks.  
> \- hope you enjoyed this drivel, everybody!


End file.
